Building a Pro Audio Brand for the Next 50 Years
This week at InfoComm, we’re previewing our new name with the world: 802 LABS. The transition from Bose Professional will roll out steadily across the coming year, with our new name fully in place by February 2027.
Before getting into the name itself — what it means, why we chose it — I want to step back and talk about something more fundamental. What is a brand, really? And why does it matter for the kind of business we want to build for the next 50 years?
What a Brand Actually Is
I think about a brand as a set of beliefs people hold about a business. You can shape those beliefs deliberately, or you can let them happen on their own. Brand is similar to culture in that way — you have one whether you intend to or not.
Brand matters because it shapes how people experience your business before they ever pick up a product or download a spec sheet. Strong brands create trust. They create confidence. They help people overcome risk. Many buying decisions in our industry carry real risk — for the integrator on the line for a deployment, for the venue putting its reputation behind a system, for the partner staking their business on the right technology choices. A strong brand helps people move through those decisions with confidence.
That’s why we’ve taken our time with this. A name change is a unique opportunity to be clearer about who we are and where we’re going.
What We Stand For
Building a brand platform means defining what makes you different and what you want to stand for — in a way that holds up not just for a season, but for decades. Innovation, quality, and premium products remain non-negotiable for us — and we wanted to go further still, to understand what’s genuinely ours and what will carry us through the next 50 years.
Two beliefs sit at the center of how we work, and they will sit at the center of 802 LABS.
The first: our people make the difference. The relationships, the responsiveness, the sense that someone on our team will pick up the phone, listen, and actually show up. That’s a commitment, not a marketing line. It’s the result of how we’ve chosen to work for more than half a century, and it’s how we intend to keep working.
The second: our purpose is to make great sound effortless. The pro audio world has grown more complex — more standards, more integrations, more workflow steps between a project being specified and a project being signed off. We see real opportunity to simplify that work, to make it more seamless, and to give our customers and partners back the time and confidence those layers have taken away.
Together, they’re the foundation for everything that comes next.
Pro Audio Made Human
Our new brand position is Pro Audio Made Human. It’s a deliberate choice. Specs, performance, and engineering depth all matter, and we’ll keep delivering on them. What people remember, though, is the experience — the feeling of confidence in a system, the partner who made their job easier, the outcome they can trust. That’s the work we’re committing to.
Our vision going forward is to redefine what’s expected from a pro audio company by putting people first and creating unmatched experiences. Our purpose is to make great sound effortless — not by hiding the complexity, but by taking it on ourselves so our customers don’t have to.
That commitment shows up in five places:
We will redefine what’s expected from a pro audio company — in hardware, in services, in support, and in the tools that surround them.
We will start with the people we serve and let their needs shape what we build.
We will make it easier to specify, install, and support our systems — and easier for end users to experience great sound.
We will keep challenging the way things have always been done.
We will be a new kind of audio company — one that makes the idea of great sound effortless.
Why 802 LABS
The name we’ve chosen carries our story forward.
The 802 was the loudspeaker that launched our professional portfolio. It was an early expression of Dr. Bose’s design philosophy, his commitment to research, and the kind of new thinking that came to define everything that followed. Its design is iconic. In many of our markets, it’s a classic.
LABS reflects where this company was born and how it has always worked. Dr. Bose’s life was shaped by inquiry — by asking different questions and pursuing answers others weren’t pursuing. Labs are where people create. Labs are where innovation happens. They are a natural home for the work we do.
Together, the name gives us continuity with our heritage and clarity about where we’re going. It holds onto what’s true about our past and opens room for what’s next.
What this Means for Our Partners
To the partners who have built businesses alongside us, who have trusted us in front of their customers, who have carried our work into thousands of rooms, venues, and projects around the world: thank you. The transition from Bose Professional to 802 LABS will roll out steadily over the coming year, with our new name fully in place by February 2027. The pace is deliberate, and we’ll be alongside you the whole way — with support, materials, and a product roadmap that matches the ambition of this new chapter.
The next 50 years won’t look like the last. Our category will keep changing. The expectations of integrators, consultants, and end users will keep rising. We’re ready for that, and we’re ready because of the people we work with — inside our company and across our partner network.
Pro Audio Made Human starts with all of you. We’re glad to be on this next chapter together.
— John Maier, CEO
